Sinn Fein

January 20, 2011 -- RTE, Today with Pat Kenny -- A new
political alliance was born in Ireland just before Christmas. It is the
United Left Alliance. It’s an umbrella group of left-wing parties and
individuals who have joined forces to fight the March 11, 2011, general election.

The
grouping consists of three existing political parties: the Socialist
Party, the People Before Profit Alliance and the Workers and Unemployed
Action Group. However the Labour Party and Sinn Fein are not members.

Richard Boyd Barrett from the People Before Profit Alliance and Joe
Higgins MEP from the Socialist Party, during the launch of the new
United Left Alliance, November 29, 2010.

By Des Derwin

December 13, 2010 – Irish
Left Review – Jodie Ginsberg, Reuters’ woman in Dublin, said on TV3’s Vincent Browne Tonight program on
November 25, when asked for her impression of the situation in Ireland, “people
are shell shocked”.

They have been for some time, but in little more than two
months a series of ever more powerful shells has burst among us:

David Begg, general secretary Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and folk singer Christy Moore at the Dublin Post Office, November 27, 2010.

November 29, 2010 -- Irish Republican News and other sources -- Up to 100,000 people took part in a march and rally organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) in Dublin on November 27 in protest at the government's planned program of austerity. At the main rally at the GPO in O'Connell Street, the site of the 1916 Easter Rising, speakers strongly criticised the government's four-year plan for economic recovery and the loss of sovereignty as a result of the European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout.

November 23, 2010 -- Irish Republican News -- The public finances of the 26-county state [Ireland] will, for the next three
years at least, be subject to “regular reviews” by external monitors
working on behalf of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European
Union (EU) and the British and Swedish governments.

On November 21, the Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Brian Cowen and minister for finance
Brian Lenihan, after a week of shocking lies and deceit, said they were
accepting the IMF/EU bailout. It later emerged that the G7, comprising
the seven most powerful countries in the world, had met to give its
approval to the deal.

This article first appeared in An Phoblacht, Ireland’s biggest selling political weekly
newspaper. It has been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with An Phoblacht's permission. An Phoblacht reflects views of Sinn Fein. For more information about An Phoblacht click HERE.

* * *

By Emma Clancy

February 25, 2010 -- An Phoblacht -- When Australia's Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal people in
February 2008, hopes were high that this indicated a new approach from
the government in its relations with the country’s Indigenous people.

But
Rudd, elected in November 2007 after 11 years of conservative,
Thatcherite rule under John Howard, has continued many of his
predecessor’s policies, which undermine the rights and wellbeing of
Australia’s Indigenous people.

Below are just some of the statements released by solidarity groups, left parties and governments, and international organisations demanding the return to power of Honduras' elected presidet Manuel Zelaya. They have been compiled by Australia's Green Left Weekly.To view the complete list, click HERE.

Belfast, March 13, 2009 -- Green Left Weekly -- The killing of two British soldiers and a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer by Irish republicans opposed to the peace process have threatened to destabilise the political situation in the six counties in the north of Ireland still claimed by Britain.

British soldiers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar were shot dead on
March 7 in an attack on Massereene Barracks in county Antrim, with
responsibility claimed by the Real Irish Republican Army, which split
from the IRA in 1997 in opposition to the peace process that sought the
end the decades-long armed conflict.

This was the first political killing of a British soldier or security force member in the six counties since 1998.

The soldiers, hours away from being deployed to Afghanistan, were
collecting a pizza delivery at the barracks gate when they were shot.
Two other soldiers and the two pizza delivery men were also shot and
injured.

This interview appeared in the May 1999 German-language Irland Almanach, edited by Jürgen Schneider. It was conducted on April 6, 1999, in Coalisland, County Tyrone, by Ralf Sotscheck, Irish and British correspondent for the German daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung. Bernadette McAliskey, a leader of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement of the 1960s, was a Westminster MP in the early 1970s and is a long-time human rights activist.

You stated some time ago that the peace process cannot and will not lead to the achievement of the just and democratic ideals to which people gave their liberty and their lives. Do you reject the peace process, or what's your position now?

I still have exactly the same analysis of the peace process. I think that over the period of time in which it has been played out, the analysis has proved to be correct. I do not take any great joy in that.